Colombian Adventures

We're back.

Jason and I had a great time in Colombia.  Uh... I mean... we were working the entire time and it was laborious.  

No, we really enjoyed the trip and I feel like we accomplished our goals.  Which is an amazing feat.  And we definitely wouldn't have had nearly as much fun or success without the help of several people.  

Fernando and Russ from Distant Lands (La Minita) were so kind.  We at the DoubleShot are barely even a blip on the radar.  We're not even a rounding error for these people.  Yet they care enough and are generous enough to invite us down to Colombia to see the new mill they are building; to put us up in hotels, feed us, entertain us, and show us a beautiful place.  I was really impressed with their generosity, not just toward us, but to the community and the kids of Jardin.  And one of the things I love most about coffee is how much there is to learn; how much is unknown.  Fernando and Russ teach me so much and I wish I could spend more days listening to them and asking questions.  

A couple of people we met for the first time were also very gracious hosts in Jardin.  Kike (that's kee-kay) and Vivian Vasquez were so fun to hang out with and they were our local source of information (and interpretation).  Their family is part owner of the new mill in Jardin and they also own the mill that produces a coffee we've been roasting since we opened- Reserva del Patron (from the Nariño region of Colombia).  Just GREAT people.

The second half of our trip was a success mainly because of Cristina Garces.  Not only is she successful and beautiful, she also has a heart for the small farmers.  She's trying to make a difference in the quality of Colombian coffee and in the quality of the lives of the farmers who produce it.  When she talked, many things she said were an echo of my own thoughts.  She made me feel excited about coffee and excited about being a part of something so important (if even a very small part).  Cristina introduced us to a farmer in La Concordia named Guillermo, who invited us to stay at his house, which was beautiful and overlooked coffee fields leading down the mountain to the Cauca River.  Guillermo was so nice to let us stay, and for feeding us and making sure we were well taken care of.  Guillermo's daughter, Carolina, really took us under her wing.  She spent virtually every minute while we were there making sure we understood what people were saying (she spoke very good English), taking us to all the places we wanted to see, introducing us to people all around town (most of whom were her relatives), and keeping us out of harm's way.  Carolina was so kind, and I felt bad for teasing her about her Colombian-British accent.  

Anyway, to say the least, we learned a lot about the way coffee is produced in Colombia.  And we found some coffees that we are definitely going to buy.  Some from Jardin and some from Concordia.  

We are excited to tell you about it and to show you our pictures. So come to the DoubleShot on Thursday, December 18th at 7p.  I think the story is a great one and between Jason and me, I think we got some pictures you will enjoy.  Coffee and snacks will be provided.

Thursday, December 18 at 7p at the DoubleShot

Colombia

Jason and I are going to Colombia.  We fly out of here on December 1.  We'll arrive in Medellin that evening and meet up the next day with Drew from Hacienda La Minita.  He'll take us to Jardin, where La Minita has built a new mill to process coffee.  It's the grand opening of the new mill and they've invited us down to see it.  We'll stay in Jardin until Friday, when we'll return to Medellin and meet up with a girl named Cristina Garces.  I found Cristina a while back when looking for people who could help me source and buy coffee more directly.  Her family owns an estate called Montes y Colinas near the town of La Concordia- not far from Medellin.  Cristina's boyfriend owns a farm close to Jardin, so we'll see his farm too.  We'll be there until the 10th, and hopefully we'll get a chance to taste a lot of great coffees.  And then bring them back to you.

We plan to have some adventures down there and to take a lot of pictures.  And I want to share our experiences with you guys.  So I'm going to schedule a time to get together and see pictures and hear stories of this latest coffee foray.  

Thursday, December 18 at 7p.  

Put it on your calendar.  I know it's a week before Christmas, but take a couple hours to come drink coffee and relax.

Huehuetenango Guatemala

I've been talking to a guy named Edwin who owns a farm in Guatemala (Finca Vista Hermosa) for a bit and he said he's brought a few groups down to do a coffee tour.  I think it would be cool to get a group together to go down there, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in it.  So I thought I'd drop a line out there to you guys and see.

Here are the details as told to me by Edwin:

It would happen sometime between February and April.  The trip would last 8 days.  Tour of Antigua and Huehuetenango, some culture and history, all focused on coffee.  We would visit drymills and a few coffee farms.  Will hike through the coffee to the ridges to see over the mountain range into Mexico.  And will get our hands dirty picking, depulping, fermenting, washing, drying, and bagging the coffee. The trip would cost about $1100 per person plus airfare and any incidentals (souvenirs, etc.).  Everything else would be covered.

He says it's pretty safe.  It's safer being in a group and these guys know areas to stay away from.  So it should be fine, but it is a tough country so anything is possible.

It would be a beautiful trip and very educational.  Getting to participate in so much of the coffee processing and experiencing the feel of it all, the unique smells, and sights would be a pretty amazing trip, even for me.

I just wanted to throw that out there and see if anyone is interested at all.  We'd need 12-15 people to go in order to make it worthwhile.  Let me know what you think.  And feel free to email me or post here with any questions.

Isaiah's Signature Drink

Most of you insiders probably know that Isaiah and I went to Austin for the weekend so he could compete in the South Central Regional Barista Competition (SCRBC).  I blogged about what the competition entails in a DoubleShot blogpost.  The only thing I didn't disclose was the makeup of his signature beverage.  

Well, he made it from a pool of 20 competitors to the final round of 6.  And then he placed fourth overall.

It was his first competition and we're just learning how to play the game, so I think we're probably going to Portland in March for the US Barista Competition, where he'll be more polished and compromising more of our standards for theirs.  I know that sounds weird, but it's the only way to do well.

Several people have asked me (and Isaiah) what his signature drink is.  He'll be using the same one at the USBC, so we don't want to spill the beans here on the internet for everyone to read.  But since you guys are our core group of coffee-lovers, we want to offer a special opportunity for you to see and taste it first-hand.

Next Thursday, November 13, at 7p Isaiah will be making his signature drink for you.  He'll talk a little about the competition, how it works and how it went, and unveil the mysteries of The Longfellow.  It doesn't take long to make the drink, but time obviously will stack up with more people.  He asks that you bring your own drinking vessel, if possible.  It should be ceramic and hold 3-4 fluid ounces.  

Please let me know if you are coming to this event so we can plan to have the right amount of ingredients.  The sooner you can let me know, the better.  There is no cost, but as usual with Coffee Illuminati events, donations will be accepted.  

Remember that's Thursday November 13 at 7p here at the DoubleShot.

Costa Rica El Indio

In my last coffee shipment I ordered a single bag of "El Indio" from Costa Rica.  It's the first time we've ever had this coffee, and so far I've only roasted it once.

It is a coffee that is sourced by Hacienda La Minita.  The coffee comes from the Tarrazu region, just like La Minita, but instead of being produced and milled on their farm, it is grown by a variety of farmers in the region and milled at the Beneficio Tarrazu in San Marcos. 

The first time I went to Costa Rica I took my bike and rode from La Minita around to different areas, and one of those days I rode to San Marcos.  It is a beautiful town with two mills, lots of uniformed school children playing soccer, pretty little houses, and of course an old church.  

I have cupped El Indio a few times with Sergio (the head cupper at La Minita) and it has always been good, but I've preferred La Magnolia (also sourced by La Minita, but from Tres Rios region).  I have purchased it now, instead of La Magnolia, for variety and exploration.  I never really know what a coffee will taste like when I roast it in the Vittoria.

It is good.  It's another classic Central American washed coffee.  In our efforts to seek out the best naturals in the world, we've sort of neglected the washed coffees and I began to feel that we were leaving out a significant portion of great coffees.  The first time I roasted the El Indio, I probably didn't take it as far into the roast as I will next time.  It's pretty light, clean, nutty, chocolatey, with a hint of wineyness.  It has a fine acidity and a clean finish.  Taking the coffee a little further into the roast will polish some of the front-end nuttiness and bring out a little more of the chocolate and fruit that I'm looking for.  

This coffee is so clean because the defects have been sorted out by hand.  For many years this coffee was only exported to Europe because the extra processing demanded a higher price and in America we're all about cutting costs and widening our margins.

Basically if you like Costa Rican coffees, you'll like the El Indio.  It's an alternative to the flagship La Minita we always roast.  But I only bought one bag, so you should try it when you see it.  I probably have 8 more roasts of it before it's gone.

Here are the cupping notes (not this year's crop) from Tom at Sweet Maria's on the El Indio:

Notes: El Indio is the mark of CoopTarrazu located in San Marcos de Tarrazu. This is the geographical and cultural center of the Tarrazu coffee area, which coincidentally describes the cup character of the El Indio perfectly - classic Tarrazu cup profile! Why do we carry so many coffees from Tarrazu? Good question, and I am kicking myself right now because it is SO much work to offer you all so many choices. But the fact is, I can't help myself when I get a great sample, and Tarrazu coffees are the preeminent Costa Rican coffees. Now, there is a lot of bad coffee that comes from Tarrazu, and there are fine coffees from elsewhere (specifically, Tres Rios region). But Tarrazu has the climate, the altitude, the "cafecultura" (coffee culture; the people, the expertise, the history). El Indio is a profoundly balanced cup, with a slightly winey character that typifies Tarrazu from the central Tarrazu Valley area. The brightness has a ripe, mature lemon quality, not what I would normally call a citrus acidity (such as some Kenyas). (Have you ever had a lemon that ripens on the tree to the point it becomes quite sweet?) It has moderate milk chocolate and hazelnut in the cup, offset with a modicum of sweetness that intensifies in the finish - what a great finish this cup has! The body is medium, and has a silky mouthfeel. The aftertaste is chocolate-caramel, clean and mild. It is a very balanced and very refined cup (+1 cuppers correction for this intangible quality), which (having a decent amount of cupping experience at international competitions) leads me to wonder ... why aren't my Japanese counterparts buying all of this? Kentaro? Shinji? Yoshi? Hiroshi? Are you reading this???

On another note, below is a link to a story that I think was written by Tim Castle in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal in 1992 about Bill McAlpin and Hacienda La Minita.  It mentions some of the coffees we've roasted from La Minita and it addresses issues that are still very pertinent today in the coffee industry.  In fact, the things Bill was talking about in 1992 are just now happening on any type of noticeable scale in the industry- the man is way ahead of his time.  While reading this I also thought about how this relates to our economy.  You can read how coffee farmers survived when the "value" of their product decreased.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/print/13218548.html

For more information about La Minita, google search "La Minita."  Or go to their website.

Ethiopian Coffees

The Ethiopians are kicking ass this year.  Some of the coffees we've tasted have been just mind blowing.  I'll tell you about a few of them.  

The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Misty Valley is one of our current offerings.  In fact, we're brewing it today.  This is a fantastic dry-processed coffee from the Idido mill.  All of the Yirgacheffe coffees we've had in the past have been washed (wet-processed), and the best of them have had a nice citrus acidity and Earl Grey tea aromas and flavors.  This Misty Valley has those same characteristics, but it is more complex.  Still very bright with that crisp citric acidity, there is a fruity tone that confuses my palate a little.  It's probably berry, but it intermingles with the other classic Yirg tastes such that it's hard to distinguish.  The coffee is delicious; one of the best we've had to offer.

The other Ethiopian we're touting right now is a natural Sidamo from the Dara region.  It's another dry-processed coffee with deliciously sweet berry flavors.  Blueberry, caramel, sweet sweet sweet.  It's really, really smooth.  Easy drinking, probably in part because its acidity isn't as high as the Yirgacheffe and it isn't as complex.  It's just plain good.

If you've been around much, you've surely had both of those coffees.  But I just bought three new Ethiopians that you haven't tasted.

A company called Ninety Plus sent me samples out of the blue.  They were beautifully presented in white mylar bags and marked only with the company name and indications that they are micro-lots from "Aricha" and "Beloya."  I'd never heard of these places, so I honestly had no idea where they were from.  Which is fine because I like to blind-cup coffees; easier to get a true taste without preconceptions about what they should taste like.  The first time I cupped them (have you seen my new cupping lab?) they were on a table of 24 coffees- most samples from brokers and a few my own coffees.  In the end, 5 of the 6 coffees from Ninety Plus scored higher than almost every coffee on the table.  A couple of them stood out more than others for me.

So I cupped them again.  The second time, the same two coffees scored highest, but with different flavor profiles.  

So I cupped them again.  Fantastic.  I think I'm getting a grip on what these coffees generally taste like, and they are beautiful.  It's really hard to cup with these coffees on the table.  The last round they were in a group of 15.  The aroma, body and fruitiness of these coffees is so big that anything sitting next to them seems thin and unimpressive.  Which isn't fair because coffee flavors can be subtle and still amazing.  That's just not the case with these coffees.

Let me tell you about the coffees I bought.

The company is Ninety Plus.  It's owned by Joseph Brodsky, who also owns Novo Coffee in Denver.  He spent 8 months in Ethiopia last year learning about their coffees and sourcing some absolutely amazing stuff.  He has the coffees air-freighted out of Ethiopia, so they don't sit in a shipping container for months before we get them.  This is much more expensive, but it preserves the flavors of the coffees and drastically reduces the lead-time.  I paid for the Sidamo and Yirg we have now about 5 months before they actually arrived.  That's tough.  Anyway, here is an article from Fresh Cup Magazine describing the improvements of dry-processed coffees and how Ninety Plus is involved:  www.doubleshotcoffee.com/washedVnaturals.pdf

The coffees I decided to buy from my cuppings are two micro-selections from two different areas and mills in the Yirgacheffe region in Ethiopia.  Joseph works with the exporter Abdellah Bagersh to get these small lots of very distinctive coffees, flies them to Denver, re-packages them in mylar and sells them to us.  These lots are differentiated by number and the coffees we are getting are the Aricha 10, Aricha 14, and Beloya 12.

Below I will insert the documents Ninety Plus sent me describing the two different regions.

In case you can't tell, this is very exciting for me.  To have someone like Joseph Brodsky source coffees that I can and you can drink is sort of a big deal.  The market for very high-end specialty coffee is pretty tight.  The mega-specialty roasters (Inteligentsia, Counter Culture, Stumptown, etc.) have the capital to buy up great coffees before most of us even know they exist.  The prospect of having someone with such resources and high quality standards basically "shopping" producers, looking for the best coffees, not just for his own roastery, but to sell wholesale- that's huge.  Back to the coffees...

The Aricha 10 was a bit tangy with some tea flavors, a great aroma- lightly apricot with some possibly curried notes.  The second time I cupped it, the aroma was more floral and earthy and the flavors were lemony, tea, traditional washed Yirg flavors.  And the last time I cupped it, the aroma was cherry or strawberry, and definitely a citrus, strawberry flavor that was absolutely delicious.  My sample roasting situation isn't very good yet, so some of that variation can come from inconsistent roasts.  Part of it too is that these coffees are complex and different flavors can come out of them at different times.  The tasting notes Ninety Plus sent me are honey, tamarind, and apricot in the aroma with a balanced, light apricot flavor.

The Beloya 12 to me was a bigger, more fruity, striking coffee.  Every time I tasted it, I was enraptured by these experiences that seemed to go straight into my chest and tie my heart-strings into bows.  Aromas of berry muffins and a bit of tea (perfect for an English afternoon), great fruit flavors, and some maltiness, huge body, and it cooled into a very sweet nutty taste (probably walnuts or almond).  The second cupping it still had a big, fragrant, fruity aroma, possibly redcurrant with sweet berry, caramel, and possibly amaretto flavors.  And the third cupping I got sweet but tangy melon flavors and lots of berry.  Ninety Plus' cupping notes included aromas of carob, butter, and light berry with flavors of ginger, maple, raspberry, and spiced apple.

The Aricha 14 is the third coffee I bought from them.  I haven't gotten a clear cupping result from this coffee, but they are sending me another sample this week.  Their cupping notes are as follows:  Aromas of peach, strawberry lemonade, raspberry jam, spiced apple cider, and flavors of raspberry and grapefruit.  

Obviously, considering all the work that goes into these coffees, they aren't going to be cheap.  The farmers are paid twice the "fair trade" price for the coffees, then the processing is time-intensive, air freight is expensive, and packaging in mylar to retain freshness adds more cost.  But it will be worth it.  The great thing about coffees like this is that they are fleeting.  The Aricha 14 will be here in a couple weeks and the others will be here probably in 5 weeks.  I could only afford one 60 kilo bag of each.  After roasting, it will only leave us with around 112 pounds of each coffee.  That's not very much so when you get a chance, enjoy them.  They will sell for $34 per pound (including tax).  And I'm planning to brew these special coffees, but not sure yet how much they'll cost per cup.  ABSOLUTELY NO CREAM OR SUGAR WILL BE ALLOWED IN THESE COFFEES.

I may have a special event to taste the coffees after they all arrive, so stay tuned.

Leadville Jogcast

I've finally finished editing the audio from the race. You can listen to it (if you're a glutton for punishment) on the AA Cafe lineup. The audio is a tad hard to understand, but if you listen real hard, I think you can make out the misery in my voice.